Off the Sauce and Other News

Betty (and her related side effects) have been keeping me busy this week. Monday required a trip to the GI to get checked out and another dose of Remicade for the colitis. Then Tuesday it was back to Boston to see the oncologist and get checked out by my surgeon. So, in chronological order…

I’m scheduled for one more dose of Remicade, which I’ll get in another month. In the meantime, I’m stuck on this low fiber diet, although I’m allowed to slowly add some foods back in. Still no raw vegetables allowed, but small amounts of cooked ones are okay, as are small amounts of whole grains. I just have to be careful not to eat a lot of either at once. *sigh* I’ve been feeling fine for the past week (aside from bloating, which I blame on the damn diet, and being stuck in a prednisone fog). No nausea.

I am officially done with the nivolumab and possibly any further immunotherapy. No surprise there. So now we just have to hope that the doses I got were enough to keep Betty in check or kill her altogether. I get scanned again next week, which is good because…

Since I’ve been out of the hospital, I’ve been experiencing ear pain again. Now, I had pain around my ear for most of last year, but for the past couple months it had gone away. I’d hoped it had gone away for good. I mean, is it normal to still be experiencing pain almost a year post-surgery? I don’t know. No one does. But it’s back, both sharp pain inside my ear as well as dull soreness where my glasses sit on the cartilage.

Neither oncologist nor surgeon detected any lumps in the area, and surgeon said everything looked healthy when he searched inside my ear. But then, that’s how Betty rolls. She’s a master of disguise. Surgeon thinks, however, the pain is most likely either being caused by dryness tightening the skin or by the nivo jacking up my immune system and causing it to go crazy around the area, irritating the nerves. Since I remember the pain increasing last summer after my second nivo/ippi dose, this does seem possible (and consistent). I hope that’s all it is anyway.

I’d say I’ll know more after the scans, but as I already stated, Betty is a master of disguise. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to be able to hide in my lungs, so that will be a good indication of whether she’s making a return elsewhere. And so it goes. Please let March be a kinder month than February!

453 comments

  1. I agree, she needs to wipe it first so we can see what all is coming out, then she needs to get in there with both hands and just squeeze like crazy, the way sh8e1&2#7;s doing it isn’t going to get anything out.. It seems as if this had some promise if she had been a good popper..

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